


way down we go

by KyloTrashForever



Series: Canonverse [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Ben Solo Cries During Sex, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Fix-It, Force Bond (Star Wars), Force Healing, Force nexus, Happily Ever After, I cut the Force ghosts out of this, Inappropriate Use of the Force, Loss of Virginity, Mentions of pregnancy in epilogue, Post-Canon Fix-It, Post-Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Redeemed Ben Solo, Resurrection, Sharing a Bed, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Fix-It, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Spoilers, and not a main protagonist, and shouldnt have appeared in the biNARY SUNSET JJ GOOD GOD, bb8 is hardly mentioned really, because I am still disappointed in them, because he is a droid, because no one can convince me Rey didn’t want a family, but honestly he deserves to, ill never believe it, into the pit where you left the last skywalker my good people, rey cries all the time because she should have fucking cried in TROS, she didn’t see herself as the CHILDREN ON PASAANA, so now she's a tear factory as punishment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-20
Updated: 2020-01-04
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:42:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 18,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21875371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KyloTrashForever/pseuds/KyloTrashForever
Summary: He looks as she would have imagined him the day after she last saw him.He looks as she would have imagined him every day since.He looksalive.Gone are the battered abrasions on his face and the tatters in his clothes; he wears the same loose tunic that he’d donned that day. The day he’d joined her. The day he’d put away Kylo Ren.The day he’d foundBen Solo.In which no one is ever really gone.
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Series: Canonverse [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1582801
Comments: 1629
Kudos: 3902
Collections: TROS - Ben Solo - Fixit Fics, TROS Reylo Fix-it Fics, Звёздные войны





	1. do we get what we deserve?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, everyone. If you're still reading, it's likely you have already seen The Rise of Skywalker and are fully aware of my absolute disappointment in what should have been one of the highest moments of our fandom experience. Here is a (probably) far-fetched version of how I imagine things would go after the movie ended in a world where everything is good and nothing ever dies. ❤️
> 
> You can read my full rant [here](https://twitter.com/ktf_reylo/status/1207880650998648832?s=21), if you want, but I wrote it just after leaving the theater and I was not kind. 😂
> 
> I will warn you fully that this may seem a little sad at first. One of my biggest problems with the film was that they didn't deal with the heavy moments and the grief. I needed to do that for my own catharsis. I PROMISE this ends happily as it should have to begin with.❤️
> 
> Fic title from [this song](https://youtu.be/0-7IHOXkiV8).  
> Amazing [soundtrack](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7ieYWJuX7Z5WVhx63e7qsg?si=4C78eFHFSU2C5G7l0lSMGQ) for this fic built by  
> [this sweet soul](https://twitter.com/Victoria___0) on Twitter. Cannot express how well it captures the mood of the entire story. ❤️

Sometimes she wonders why she’s here. 

She remembers a time when she imagined somewhere green. Some faraway place thrumming with life. There would be grass beneath her fingers. There would be a clear blue in the sky. There would be a warmth there that she actually felt. 

Perhaps it’s fitting that she found her way back to the sand. 

It’s a curious thing—this land that burns beneath the sun. Things don’t come here to live. Not really. 

Things come here to be buried.

There are memories beneath the shifting sands long forgotten—things that were, things that are, things that could be—and Rey feels as if she belongs here. Here in this place where things are buried. 

Perhaps she wishes to be one of those things. 

It’s been weeks now. Since she found the answers she thought she wanted. Since she gave the Galaxy some semblance of peace. 

Since she lost _him._

She doesn’t think about him when she can, but there are too many moments when he’s there. In a whisper of the wind, in the sunlight on her face—like a brush of his hand that she still feels like a tangible weight. There are moments when she lets her fingers rest against her cheek, imagining his resting beneath them. 

But those moments are a lie.

There is nothing in this desert but what she brought with her. 

BB-8 nudges her hand, beeping at her with a melancholy she recognizes. She knows what he wants—what he’s pushed her for—but she can’t bring herself to re-open the comm unit he carries. No one knows where she is, and she isn’t yet ready to face them. Isn’t ready to face the truth of it all.

Isn’t quite ready to bury his memory yet.

Rey slides her hand just over BB’s ocular lens. “It isn’t forever,” she tells him. “I’m just not ready yet.”

He whirrs morosely, letting his head loll forward on his rounded body.

“Maybe tomorrow we’ll take the speeder to Mos Eisley,” she offers, knowing it’s most likely untrue. “Maybe.”

BB chirps in suspicion, prodding her about her hermit-like lifestyle she’s taken up. She thinks perhaps he’d thought this was temporary—when he tagged along. Where Poe went… it was no place for BB-8. Perhaps BB thought they would be here only to finish her task, to bury what they came here to bury, and then they would meet up with them. 

Maybe Rey thought so too, in the beginning.

But then she never left. 

There’s something about this place, she thinks. This place where it all started. Where _they_ started. Everyone she’s ever felt close to. 

_Him._

There are moments at night where she lingers in the doorway of Luke’s old home, watching the suns go down and imagining a silhouette in the distance. Where she imagines him coming back to her. 

How could it be that they had so little time? 

It’s a question she asks herself nearly every night, even when she wishes for nothing more than to be free of him. Would things have been different if she hadn’t abandoned him so long ago? She knows the answers aren’t out here, and yet she wonders all the same. 

BB rolls away with a disgruntled chime, leaving her alone to her thoughts as he informs her that he’s going to check the vaporators outside—continuing their slow project of restoring the farm. Probably resigning himself to the possibility of this being their life now.

Rey closes her eyes as she lays against thin sheets she bartered for upon her first arrival, rolling to face the wall as she wraps her arms around herself. Desperately pushing away thoughts she doesn’t want. Memories she can’t live with. 

She can’t be sure how long she lies there alone—and the silence is like a crushing wave that washes over her, nothing to offer in terms of peace. 

So it’s deafening, the whisper she’s imagined so often these last few weeks. It’s nothing more than a breath of sound, a gasp of breath—but her name resides in it. A low utterance of _Rey_ in a baritone she recognizes. 

She shoots up in the bed, head turning frantically in search of the sound and finding the room just as empty as it was a moment ago. She is deathly still, straining to hear something, _anything_ else—her chest growing tight with disappointment when silence settles once more. 

And she’s about to resign herself to another afternoon of staring at the ceiling, moving to resettle into her bedding—when a weight against her hand makes her go still. It’s light, and barely there, but for a moment she feels as if fingers wind through hers. There’s a sensation of warmth and touch tingling against her skin, and her breath catches when she feels a squeeze there of reassurance. 

Again her eyes fly about the room, breath trapped in her throat and eyes wide. “Ben?”

It’s a fool’s hope she carries, and possibly the culmination of her own psyche succumbing to everything she’s been subjected to—but still that flicker of _possibility_ courses inside. One she’s done her best to ignore, knowing it would only make things worse.

But the sensation fades, and the whisper remains silent. Her chest loosens as her breath comes tumbling past her lips, choked and forced and _heavy—_ and she lies back down to close her eyes, staunching the tears there.

Rey knows she is alone, just as she always was.

* * *

She doesn’t know how many days pass before she is given more reason to hope. 

It’s a warmth around her that has nothing to do with the sun. It’s a weight like that of arms encircling her—arms too big and too wide to be anyone else’s—and for a moment she forgets to breathe as she closes her eyes to revel in it. It’s an embrace she knows. 

It’s one she thought she’d never feel again. 

She reaches to touch her fingers to her chest, and she can almost swear she feels someone shift beneath them. 

But it’s gone too soon—and Rey wonders again if she is going mad. If her mind simply can’t handle the idea of living in a world without him.

She falls asleep that night with a fearful heart. 

* * *

The first time she sees him, it’s from the corner of her eye. Like a shadow. All broad and dark and _familiar_ lurking just at the edge of her vision—a hand outstretched as if reaching for her. 

She spins fast enough to see stars, hoping to catch it, catch _him—_ to hold on to the ghost of him and never let go.

But there is no one there. 

Was there ever? 

BB-8 hums below, but his sounds are lost to a cacophony of her own crashing in her ears. The racing of her heart, the rushing of her blood, the whirring of her own mind. 

And her eyes—her eyes never stop moving. Never stop _searching._

She wonders if they ever will.

* * *

“ _Rey.”_

Her eyes fly open only to be met with darkness. There is a steady beep sounding from the corner where BB charges himself. 

_“Rey.”_

He’s a shadow—little more than shape and silhouette, but she would know him in any darkness. Her body is still with shock, wondering if this is a dream. If this is a desperate projection of her own crippled mind—but then he reaches out. 

She feels the brush of his knuckles against her cheek, and a choked sob tears from her chest as she leans into it. As she _memorizes_ it. If it is a dream, she wants to remember every moment when she wakes up. She wants to imprint it onto her memory like a tattoo.

“ _Ben.”_

She can’t see a smile, but she can _feel_ it. Can feel its memory at the back of her mind where she’s locked it away. Too afraid to take it out for fear of remembering what came _after._

“Ben,” she says softly. “Ben, is that—”

He’s gone as quickly as he comes. 

Rey stares at the place where he’d been for far too long, thinking that perhaps it _is_ time to leave this place. Thinking that there is nothing here but ghosts, and not the ones she wants to see. 

She doesn’t sleep again for the rest of the night. 

* * *

It’s been days. Days passing one after the other, convincing her that all that she thought she saw, that she _felt—_ has only been in her own mind. 

Until suddenly he is here. Actually _here._

She blinks several times, afraid to believe he’s real. 

Because he is, she thinks. _Here._

Not just the shape of him but _solid_ and _clear._

She’s too afraid to speak his name. Too afraid to _move_ for fear of him disappearing again. 

But Ben has no such fears. 

“Rey?” Her mouth parts, words failing her. “Can you see me?”

She nods slowly, wondering if this will be the moment he fades from view again. 

His mouth turns upwards in what can only be described as relief, closing his eyes and nodding. “I’ve tried—tried to stay—but it’s hard.”

“Are you—” She swallows around the lump in her throat, frozen by her own fear. “Are you dead?”

Ben’s brow furrows as he looks down at himself. “I’m not sure.”

“Can I—” Her lip trembles, wetness at her lashes. “Can I touch you?”

His eyes grow sad, his face falling as his fists clenched at his sides. “I’m… not sure.”

She takes a step, and then another, hand outstretched in the way one might approach a frightened skittermouse. 

He looks as she would have imagined him the day after she last saw him.

He looks as she would have imagined him every day since. 

He looks _alive._

Gone are the battered abrasions on his face and the tatters in his clothes; he wears the same loose tunic that he’d donned that day. The day he’d joined her. The day he’d put away Kylo Ren. 

The day he’d found _Ben Solo._

Her fingertips collide with cloth that lacks warmth, but it’s solid. _He’s_ solid. She feels her mouth split, her lips tremble—and he’s here. He’s _here._ She can’t know how. Can’t know _why._ She doesn’t think she even cares. It doesn’t matter, not when he’s—

She sees the moment it happens. Sees the frustration bleed into his features. Sees the way his lips part in warning—and then he’s gone. 

Gone again.

Rey howls in frustration, kicking a spare part against the wall and flipping the tiny table in the hollowed out space of a kitchen with nothing more than the Force and her own rage. 

It takes her several moments to collect herself, and she feels herself shaking, _trembling—_ staring at the space where he’d been as her chest rises and falls with effort. 

But then there’s a calm.

One she’s not felt in weeks. 

She knows she didn’t imagine him being here. 

She tells herself he’ll come back for her. 

It might be all she has left.

* * *

When she arrived on Tatooine, when she unconsciously lingered—Rey had, for all accounts and purposes, lost her way. What steps were there to take, in the wake of her loss? What task was there to chase after when she had nothing left? She had been reduced to little more than an empty shell. Holding on to the facade of strength for people that aren’t even around anymore. Never moving forward. No longer _living,_ really. 

Rey feels something like purpose now. 

And perhaps it’s unwise, to allow herself to find resolve in waiting. Perhaps it will only make things worse—but Rey thinks at least that it’s something she knows. She knows all about waiting. She always has. 

BB chirps beside her as she works, informing her of the problem with the vaporator that he’s recently discovered and aiding her in fixing it. She thinks they’re close now—and their success will mean they can stay longer. Something she vacillates between wanting and very much _not_ wanting, for whatever reason. 

BB rolls away in search of some sort of lubricant for the rusted gears, and she puts all her strength into the turning of the wrench, gritting her teeth as she tries to move the aged mechanism without damaging it. She closes her eyes as she leans back, tugging at the metal, and is surprised when a sudden surge of strength courses through her, allowing the gear to turn easily as it locks into place. She stares at it, stunned for a moment, before loosening her grip to turn up her face. 

She wonders if she’ll ever fully grow accustomed to the sight of him smiling. Is it something that comes only with the peace of death for him? 

She stands slowly, dusting off her pants idly as she stares back at him. She doesn’t quite know how many more times she can actually watch him fade from view before it tears her apart—but still she finds herself reaching, always _reaching_ to him. 

And it’s a breath of relief when her fingers touch the soft strands curling near his nape. It’s a sharp inhale of surprise when his hands curl around her wrists to hold them, turning her palm so that he might rest his cheek there. 

“You’re here,” she whispers.

He nods. “Somehow.”

“Can you stay?”

His mouth forms a tight line. “I’m not sure how long I have. It’s so difficult to stay.”

Tears wet the corners of her eyes as she rushes against him, burrowing her face in the linen of his tunic and breathing him in. She feels strong arms wrap around her, holding her tight in a way she never thought she would feel again. Allowing tears to fall that she’s kept locked away, refusing to grieve if only for fear of having to admit that he was actually _gone._

“I thought I’d lost you,” she chokes out. 

“I thought so too,” he murmurs. “I’m still not so sure you haven’t.”

She leans back suddenly, a flicker of anger she’s kept buried coursing through her as she pounds on his chest. “Why did you do it? Why did you sacrifice yourself? _Why_ , Ben?”

His smile is easy as he brushes back her hair, his eyes moving over the lines of her face. “For whatever redemption I have found, I will always be selfish, Rey.” He leans forward, resting his forehead against hers. “There is no world that I can live in when you’re not in it.”

“But you left me,” she sobs. “You left _me_ alone.”

“I’m still here with you,” he soothes. “I think I always have been.”

“I don’t understand how it’s possible,” she sniffles.

“I don’t feel much.” He pulls her tighter. “Nothing but you. I _always_ feel you, even when there’s nothing else.”

“Where are you, when you aren’t here?”

He shakes his head against her hair, tucking her under his chin. “I don’t know. It’s dark. Empty, even. But you’re always there. Sometimes it’s a feeling, as if your emotions are mine.” He leans back, brow wrinkled in thought. “Sometimes it’s your words, lingering in my ear as if you’re speaking to me.”

“And now you’re actually here,” she whispers.

“Everything I am will always be trying to get back to you.”

Her face crumples as fresh waves of something like sorrow and joy blended into one wracks through her. She closes her eyes as she burrows into him, thinking that if she holds him tight enough—he won’t be able to leave her. 

“You call yourself Skywalker now,” he says quietly. 

“I…” She nods against his shirt. “Yes.”

She feels his hand stroke against hair gently. “Why?”

“Because—” She can feel her traitorous eyes welling again, her voice shaking with effort to get out the words she never thought she’d have the chance to say. “Because the name I was given I can’t take, and—” She releases a shuddering breath. “And the name I wanted… I never thought I could have.”

She feels fingers beneath her chin, tilting up her face as warm, brown eyes search hers. “I never wanted to leave you alone.”

“Then stay,” she whispers brokenly. 

He lets out a sigh. “I don’t even yet know what holds me here.”

She runs a hand over his chest, letting it settle over his heart than she can almost imagine is beating. There’s a spark there, some thrumming energy that crackles with _something_ that is all too familiar. Something she _knows_. Something she thought she’d _lost._

“The bond,” she whispers.

“That’s not possible.”

“Is any of this?”

“It should have severed with my passing.”

“Maybe I—” She frowns down at her hand that lingers over his heart. “Maybe I couldn’t let it. Maybe I wasn’t ready.”

“Rey. You can’t carry me with you. Not like this. You can’t _live_ like this.”

She grits her teeth. “I can’t _live_ without _you_.”

“You have to. You have to sever it. If that’s what holds me here you have to let _go.”_

“Don’t you see that I _can’t?”_

His hand moves to cover hers. “I didn’t give my life so that you could only live _half_ of one.”

“Ben,” she chokes out. “Without you… there is nothing left for me.”

“My Rey can conquer anything,” he murmurs, his other hand sliding across her cheek to settle. “Anything.”

She looks up at him with tearful eyes. “Not this,” she mourns. “Never this.”

His eyes study her, moving across every detail of her face as if to memorize it. “I can feel it fading again.”

“I won’t let you go,” she tells him determinedly.

He doesn’t answer, but she can see in his eyes that he isn’t of the same mind. That he wants to _sacrifice_ himself all over again. That he wants to leave her _alone—_ if only for the convoluted idea that it’s what he’s _meant_ to do.

She can feel it too now, not the sudden disappearance of times past but a slow fade that she feels as if her own. Her hand covers the one against her cheek, and she’s leaning—too desperate to take what she’s been missing to argue anymore. 

Maybe she imagines the way his lips feel warm against hers; maybe it’s only a memory, a _ghost—_ but she feels it. Feels it in the way he pulls her tighter. Feels it in the way his desperation matches hers. Feels it in the way that he’s _here._

Until he isn’t. 

Her eyes are still closed when she feels his loss, her hand hovering over nothing and her chest growing tight. She reaches inside herself, searching for a thread that’s always been there, one that has always waited for her to tug at it, even when she’s kept it locked away. She tests it now, pulling until her vision bleeds red only to flicker out—and she can almost see him there. In the dark. Wherever he goes when he’s not here. 

Rey can’t yet know what it means, or what she must do, but one thing is for certain. She isn’t letting him go. Not again. 

Not ever again. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise this has a happy ending I'm sorry I am being so depressing right now.


	2. let your feet run wild

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys I am the worst. I'm sorry. I'm working through my grief. Please don't yell at me.

The first time she calls him to her is difficult.

It’s like pulling on a rope that is trapped beneath something heavy, something _immovable._ It takes energy, and patience she doesn’t feel—but then he’s there, resting on the floor of her settlement with a surprised expression. 

“How did you—?”

She’s already scrambling from her bed to collide with him on the floor. “We _are_ still connected.”

“You’re weak,” he chides in concern. “You expended your energy to conjure me.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It does to _me.”_

She winds her arms beneath his to wrap around his middle. “You don’t get an opinion.”

“Rey.”

She isn’t listening anymore. She rubs her face against the soft linen of his tunic, smiling wearily as she revels in this tiny victory. “Tell me about what happened.”

He is quiet for a moment, and then: “I died, Rey.”

She tries to ignore the wave of grief that washes over her, focusing on the present. On the solidity of his body beneath hers. "You don't look like you died," she whispers. "You don't _feel_ like you died."

"I can feel it," he answers softly. "That I'm not... quite here."

She closes her eyes. “Tell me everything that came after. Tell me what you remember.”

“I—” He grows quiet, thinking. “I remember you, mostly. Your face. Your smile. Your _mouth—”_ Her fingers tighten in the fabric of his shirt, closing her eyes as his hand settles against her hair. “But then there was cold. A cold that started inside and bled outwards. Then darkness. There was nothing. There was only darkness. For a time.” He falls silent, his body tensing. “But then there wasn’t.” She can hear the frustration in his voice. “I don’t—I’m not—”

“Calm down,” she soothes, knowing his rising exasperation will only make it harder to keep him tethered. She is already so _tired._ “Focus.”

His hands settle down her spine where he holds her to his chest, and she can feel the rise and fall beneath her as he steadies himself. “I don’t know how long I was in the dark. I didn’t feel the passing of time. The place I go to… it’s unnatural. Nothing but shadow and… power. Some pulsing energy that surrounds and envelops. One I can’t see but can _feel.”_ He releases a slow breath. “But the _darkness.”_

“Why did you stay? Your uncle and mother… I saw them. They’ve gone on.”

“I think I almost did,” he answers. “I even think maybe I was _meant_ to—but then I was drawn elsewhere.”

She looks up at him. “Elsewhere?”

He stares at her heavily in thought. “It was you.”

“Me?”

“I can’t say how, or why—but I _felt_ you. In the dark. It was like a path opened up, and at the end... I could _feel_ you there.”

“But I’ve been here. I’ve been here since—”

He nods. “I know. You weren’t waiting for me at the end. Not really. And yet I can still feel you in that place. Wherever it is.”

She closes her eyes, trying not to imagine him there. Alone in the dark where she can’t get to him. “When did you first know you weren’t… gone?”

“I’m not so sure I’m not, Rey,” he answers softly.

She pulls him closer. “You’re _here.”_

“Am I?”

She pushes away to look at him, seeing the way his eyes don’t quite hold the warmth they should. Reaches to brush her fingers across his cheek only to find they lack it as well. Her lip trembles as she swallows thickly. “You are here. I don’t care how.”

“It costs you to be with me,” he says grimly. “I think it’s what brought me here in the first place. I think you called me.”

“But I didn’t—”

“It was only a flicker at first. Like”—his brow furrows—“dying candlelight. Just a spark of you.” His mouth parts as he remembers. “It was your voice at first. I heard… my name. I think. Whispered. Maybe even in sleep.”

There’s no other explanation for it, seeing as she’d done her very best to push him from her every thought. “You heard me?”

“Barely, but it was there. It was the first time I felt… alive.”

“Maybe you—” 

“Rey,” he sighs. “I think we both know I’m not. Even now I can feel the way I’m slipping. I think it’s only you that keeps me here—whether consciously or not, you don’t have the strength to keep me here forever.”

“What other choice do I have?”

He brushes a loose curl from her face. “You know what you have to do.”

“The last time you said that to me, you wanted me to take your hand.”

His face crumbles a bit, mouth forming a tight line. “Now I’m asking you to let go of it.”

“I can’t do that, Ben. Not again. I _won’t.”_

“Rey.” His hands come to rest on either side of her face, his thumbs brushing back-and-forth across her cheeks, and she can almost imagine that they’re warm. “Leaving you alone… will always be the hardest decision I’ve ever made. I’ve seen your mind, your fears—I _know_ you. I always have. It was selfish, and it wasn’t fair, but you have always been the best of us both. You deserve to go on. To make a place for yourself. You can’t _do_ that with me. Not the way I am.”

Tears leak down her cheeks as she stifles a sob. “There has to be some other way.” 

“There isn’t,” he whispers, leaning to press his lips to her forehead. “There never was. Not for us.”

“I can’t hold on much longer,” she tells him, feeling her strength waning, “but I don’t want to let you go.”

“You will,” he soothes, stroking her hair. “You’ll find a way, and you’ll let go.”

“Haven’t I paid enough? Haven’t I _sacrificed_ enough?” She grits her teeth. “I just want you with me.”

He smiles back at her, softly, lighting up his face as he holds hers in his hands. “I’ll always be with you.” His hand drifts to settle over her chest. “Here.”

Her visions still clouds with her tears as she feels him slipping, and she wraps her arms around him as if her touch will tether him, _bind_ him, keep him with her. “It’s not enough,” she whispers.

But he goes as she knew he would, and Rey holds herself long after, knowing that it isn’t. That it’s _not_ enough. She knows then that she doesn’t care what it costs. Doesn’t care what she will have to do—she’s going to bring him back. She carries a thousand generations inside her, and yet she only wishes for one.

* * *

Rey slept for a while after he’d gone. Hours, a day—she can’t be sure. She feels the way her body strains with the pressure of it all—how opening herself back up to the bond weighs on her like a heavy stone on her chest, making it harder to breathe at times. 

She knows this is what Ben fears, but it’s only that she can’t bring herself to consider alternatives. 

She now knows what it’s like to lose him. She spent so much time— _too_ much time—denying him, and it all feels wasted now. Their entire story feels so _wasted._

She closes her eyes as she presses her hands to the floor now, searching inside herself for that thread that she knows will bring him to her. It’s there, in the dark, a beacon of light amidst the crushing blackness, and she tugs at it with all her might as she searches for him. She feels the way she rises from the bed, hovering above it as the air crackles around her—keeping her mind clear and her spirit centered. 

She thinks she can almost see him. There in the dark. 

It fills her with a sorrow she can’t describe—the crushing solitude she feels all around him. He feels… frozen. Almost as if he can’t hold onto any sliver of life that he brings with him when he comes to her. Like it only exists when he’s here. Here with _her_.

It breaks her heart. 

He senses her presence lingering just beyond the confines of his purgatory—because that’s what it is, she thinks, some sort of limbo he can’t escape, not living but not _dead_ either—and even though she thinks he can’t see her, she knows he can _feel_ her with the way his eyes move about the hollow darkness. 

There are echoes of him coming into view—a casting of his visage over and over all around him as if reflected from a thousand mirrors. She watches his mouth open, watches the same thing happen one after the other for the infinite number of Bens that surround him—and Rey feels a twinge of _something_ she can’t quite grasp. Something she thinks she ought to remember. Something inside her that begs to be brought to light.

“Rey?”

She wants to ask where he is even as her name is echoed over and over in this place of darkness and illusion, wants to ask how to _help_ him—but she finds the words won’t come. She feels herself slipping, feels the way she is pulled back to her own space. Away from _him._ She opens her mouth, his name on her tongue—but when she opens her eyes she is on her bed, alone and exhausted. 

She collapses against the sheets, chest heaving and eyes stinging, vexation seeping out of every pore as a sense of overwhelming defeat courses through her. What is the point of everything she’s been through, if she can’t have even this? If she can’t _do_ even this? What meaning was there to any of it if she is doomed to go through everything left to come alone? 

It’s something she can’t accept. 

It’s something she’s terrified she might have to.

BB-8 hums something from the doorway—but it falls on deaf ears. Rey closes her eyes as she wills everything silent, turning on her side and curling in on herself. In this moment she doesn’t feel _chosen._ She doesn’t feel as if she’s _risen_ to anything. 

She just feels alone.

* * *

It takes her eyes a moment to adjust, when she realizes he’s there with her. BB charges nearby; she can hear the steady and soft chime from the corner—but it’s none of these things that stirred her awake. 

She’s afraid to move.

Afraid it’s a dream.

But then his arm around her middle hugs tighter. 

“Rey.”

A relieved rush of air escapes her. “ _Ben.”_

“You called out to me again,” he murmurs into her hair, his big body molded just behind hers in her bed. “In your sleep.”

She can’t help the little smile at her mouth, even though it doesn’t quite meet her eyes. “So you just crawled into my bed?”

“Names aside, I am the only Skywalker here,” he answers quietly. “It could be argued that you crawled into mine.”

She chokes out a soft laugh, her hand curling over his forearm as a low humming current passes through her fingertips, proof of their bond. For a moment she basks in it—in this small comfort of touch she thinks neither of them have ever truly experienced, reveling in the weight of his hand over her midsection that rises and falls with her every breath. 

“I never thought I would have this,” she laments quietly. 

She feels the brush of his nose along her nape. “Neither did I.”

“I thought I’d found you,” she tells him. “Earlier. I saw you there. In the dark.”

“I felt you.”

“Something about that place…” She shakes her head. “It feels familiar.”

“I feel nothing from it,” he answers. “Only you.”

“How can you feel me there if I’m not there with you?”

“It’s not... quite _you._ ” He sighs against her nape, and even with the unnatural coolness he exudes—she can almost feel the warmth of it. “It’s like… a memory. An imprint of some kind. Someone you were. Someone you aren’t anymore. Someone you’ve always been.”

“What does that even mean?”

“I wish I had the answer to that.”

She huffs in frustration, rolling finally to face him. Even under the cover of night she can make out all the tiny facets of his expression that make it so hard to look away from his face—ones that have drawn her in since that first day. Since he first removed his helmet. When she was nothing more than a prisoner. 

She feels as if she’s back there again. A prisoner to circumstances, now. 

She reaches to run her fingers down his face—tracing the smooth skin that once bore a scar she gave him herself. “You’re welcome for that, by the way,” she chuckles softly. 

“Am I supposed to say thank you for you ridding me of a mark _you_ gave me?”

She shrugs one shoulder. “I thought it made you look sort of fearsome.”

His lips twitch. “Did you.”

“Oh, yes,” she teases. “The mighty and powerful Kylo Ren.” She shudders. “Left me terrified.”

His grin widens as his arm pulls her closer. “Nothing leaves you terrified.”

“That’s not true.” Her mouth turns down, the playful moment dissipating as reality sets in. “I’m terrified to lose you.”

She can see on his face all the words he wants to say—ones he knows she doesn’t want to hear, and she’s grateful. When he says nothing instead. When his hand slides up her throat to wind around her neck, cupping there as he pulls her in. 

She isn’t sure how long he can stay, but it feels easier, _lighter—_ when his lips brush against hers. She doesn’t notice so much the effort it takes to tether him, only recognizes the softness of his mouth. She arches to feel more of him, tugs at his tunic to pull him _closer—_ and it surprises him, she thinks, when her hand curls over his hip to steady him as she drapes her leg over his. 

“ _Rey.”_ His voice is rougher now, nothing between them but their breath and her racing heart. “What are you—”

She doesn’t answer, only tugs him close to crash her mouth against his, chasing after that sparking sensation inside that makes her forget what happened. That makes her forget that this is fleeting. That makes her believe he’s _actually here._ At least for now. 

She can feel the jutting of his hip bone when she slides her hand beneath his loose shirt, cool against her fingers, and then there is a gasp of breath that she swallows down as his large fingers ( _so large, so impossibly large in the way they cover so much of her)_ curl around her thigh that lays over his to grip her there. 

The feelings inside her are strange and new—ones she’s only ever experienced with him—and she clings to them, letting them fill her up. Making her feel alive. Making her feel as if _he is too._

He opens his mouth to say something, her name, maybe—but there is only a deep groan that escapes him instead. The slide of his tongue against hers is something unfamiliar to her, something she’s never really thought about, but also altogether _thrilling._ She thinks it’s only her own body heat that makes her skin warm, that leaves a burning between them, but it’s enough to let her pretend. Pretend that this is another time, another place, somewhere where they have nothing but each other. 

“Rey,” he manages breathlessly. “What are you—”

She’s pushing up his shirt, not even entirely sure what she’s asking for. “Stay with me. _Be with me._ Please, Ben. Please don’t go.”

“You can’t— _ah—_ you don’t have strength to—”

“I can keep you,” she tells him determinedly. “I can. For a while.”

Already she can feel the strain of it, but she ignores it all with a ferocity of will, determined to hold onto him. Even if only for a little while. She thinks he means to argue again, to tell her all the reasons why they shouldn’t—but she’s already tugging his shirt over his head. She marvels that she’s able to do so, such a simple action seeming so _alive_ , and for just a moment, she lets her hands run over the hard planes of his chest, bereft of the scars he once bore, his skin smooth and clear and _whole—_ born again in the act of her own feelings for him. Ones at the time she hadn’t quite yet come to terms with.

She feels more resolved than ever. More _hopeful_ than ever. She thinks that there is nothing she can’t do for him. She thinks she could move _mountains_ for him. 

She can feel his lingering hesitation, feel it heavy as if it is her own, and she curls her hands around his neck as she pulls him close, her lips just hovering against his. “I can keep you. I _can_ , Ben. I can keep you for this. Please don’t deny me this.”

His skin trembles with effort, at war with himself, but she feels the moment he gives in to his own want. Gives in to _her_ . He rolls her roughly to her back, covering her body with a new fierceness that comes with not knowing how much time they have. With _needing_ this as much as she does. 

His hands are clumsy as they tear at the airy shirt she wears to sleep, just as unpracticed as hers in their need to bare more, to _see_ more. She can hardly feel it now, the chill of him, her own skin burning bright enough for them both as he slides a wide palm over her bare stomach, moving upward with held breath to rest between her breasts just over her heart. 

She can see emotions swirling in his eyes, and she knows what he’s thinking. What he’s _feeling._ She feels it all because it matches everything inside her. She knows he’s thinking they should have had more time for this. That they should have had all the time in the world. 

“You’re beautiful,” he chokes out. “You always have been.”

Her hand reaches to cup his cheek. “So have you, Ben.” He has, she thinks. Even in his brokenness. Even in the way he was so _lost_. “Always.”

He lowers then, mouth slanting across hers in a hurried rush, impatience coursing through him that matches her own as hands tear away clothing and bodies slide against each other. It’s a learning curve, one they don’t have time to discover—so instead they depend on the sparks against their fingers as they collide with naked skin. They depend on the trapped breath in their lungs when they move hurriedly against each other in their mission to tear away everything until there is nothing between them. 

Ben looks at her like she’s something precious when she finally lies bare beneath him, and it shouldn’t be heartbreaking, that longing in his eyes. She knows he’s trying to memorize her, knows that in his mind this will be the only time for them. 

Rey won’t let herself think that way. 

She tugs him down to her, letting his large body settle between her legs, allowing the flood of warmth inside her to pour into him. Sharing it through their bond until his body thrums with something buzzing with life that she knows isn’t his own, but she can pretend. 

She gasps when fingers slide through her center, exploring her with an awestruck expression. She can feel him against her thigh, rigid and straining and so _needful—_ and she holds him close as her mouth moves sloppily over his jaw, no time for the care they both deserve. Too afraid that every second might be the last. Her thighs press tighter against his hips, fingers clawing at his shoulders as she brings him closer, as she silently asks for _more._

“Rey,” he rasps, head burying against her throat as one hand settles over her hip to steady her. “Rey, I’ve never—we have to—”

“No,” she growls. “No waiting. Please, Ben. I don’t—I don’t know how much time we have.”

He releases a shuddering breath when she tilts up her hips, feeling the heavy slide of him between the slick crease of her, his hand gripping her tighter, his chest rising and falling more and more roughly with every passing second. His mouth covers hers, his fingers pressing below in a way that makes her breathless, stretching and touching and _taking_ in a way she’s only thought about in the most hidden parts of herself. Then he’s there—pushing into her too slowly for her liking, treating her as if she’s something fragile.

And maybe she is now. Maybe she is nothing more than a fragmented shadow of what she once was—but she is strong enough for this, she thinks. 

Ben hardly breathes as he sinks inside, and he’s too big, and she’s too full, and her eyes sting with the unfairness of it all—but the stretch is good. It’s a reminder that in whatever capacity, he’s _here._ That she’s still holding on. 

He’s trembling when she’s full of him, and so is she—and her hands move to tangle in his hair as she kisses him softly, _sweetly—_ murmuring words of reassurance that she’s okay. That so is he. That they’re _here._

His first thrust is testing, but his second is more sure. She whispers to him that it’s okay, begs him to keep going, and she pours every ounce of her strength into this. Into _him_ . He moves frantically, chasing after the end, but she feels a current of energy stroking lovingly between her thighs, coaxing the fire inside her as something builds and builds and _builds._

“Ben,” she chokes out, feeling her eyes sting and her chest heave. “ _Ben.”_

There is a single drop of something wet against her cheek, and she knows it doesn’t come from her. His kiss is wet, too, his hand shaking as it cups her cheek. 

He thinks this is all there is for them.

Rey tells herself it isn’t.

“I never told you,” he starts thickly. “Never told you that I—”

She’s nodding, kissing him frantically as his thrusts grow erratic. “I love you. Of course I do.”

“I would have loved you until my last,” he manages raggedly. “I still will. Wherever I am. Always.”

“You still can,” she says fiercely. “You still _will.”_

He doesn’t answer, and she knows why—so she loses herself in the feel of him. In the heavy slide in and out of her. In the tender press of his mouth against hers. In the humming sensation of the Force as he coaxes more from her. 

“Rey. _Rey._ ” His hips move heavily, and he moves so _deep_ now. “I’m—I can’t—”

She nods impatiently. “I feel it,” she rasps. “I feel it, too.”

He lets go with her name on his tongue, and his body shakes with the release of it. Rey chases after him only moments later, and there is a completeness there she’s never felt before. A closeness she never dared hope for. Her breath comes in ragged pants, and she feels her strength waning, and her cheeks are wet from both their eyes, and she wants nothing more than to _keep_ this.

“I should have been able to hold you after,” he mourns, sensing the way he’s slipping. “I should have been able to keep you.”

“You will,” she whispers brokenly. “I promise.”

He kisses her slowly, an emotion in it that nearly tears her apart—and she closes her eyes as she clings to it. 

There’s an emptiness when he’s gone, not just of her body but _deeper—_ but there’s a warmth there as well. One that isn’t born from her. One she thinks he might have left behind.

She feels weak with the effort she’s exerted, but she can’t find it in herself to regret a moment of it. She whispers his name one last time as her eyes flutter with exhaustion, pulling her sheets around her and pretending it’s his arms that cover her instead. 

In the back of her mind there are flashes of that place—the one she knows he goes to, and there’s a nagging memory there she can’t quite grasp. One she thinks is the key to all this. She feels sleep casting its curtain over her, and she tells herself there is always tomorrow. That there _is_ a tomorrow for them.

She refuses to entertain any other possibility. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Are you all still talking to me? I'm really wishing I'd just written a crack-porn fix it instead. 😭
> 
> I promise Rey is about to crack the code here, though. ❤️


	3. down til' the dark

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> guys there is a reason I don't really dabble in canon and this chapter is exactly it if this setup is nonsense I am sorry I really really did give this weird idea my best go

She finds him next in a dream.

Or rather, what she thinks is a dream. She’s long since learned dreams can be deceptive things. She thinks she feels the truth of it in the way the heaviness of their joining doesn’t consume her. As if they are not together in this moment by her design, but by the Force itself. 

It reminds her of that first time they’d been thrust together. She’d been so _angry_ then. _Shocked_ , even.

Now she feels only relief.

Ben looks at her as if he doesn’t yet believe she’s actually there. “Is this real?”

“I—” Rey looks down at her body and finds something off about it—solid, but also somehow altogether _not_ solid. “I think so. In a way.”

“A dream,” he murmurs. “I don’t feel you as much.”

“It feels easier this way,” she tells him. “I don’t feel as if I’m using any of my own strength.”

Ben offers her a sad smile. “It will always be easier not to hold onto me, Rey.”

She doesn’t answer him, teeth gritted as a sickly cold washes through her. Rey looks around, seeing more of his prison than ever before. “Is this it? Is this where you go?”

Ben nods. “Since waking.”

“It feels familiar.”

“It just feels like you to me,” Ben sighs. “You… and power. The power of something older than both of us. It’s a little overwhelming, at times.”

Rey peers into the darkness, finding the edges of his body wispy like smoke. He seems less whole here, somehow, fragmented. Almost like a tattered reflection of his true self.

Rey’s mouth parts in surprise, a wriggling thought teasing somewhere in the back of her mind. She can see him stretched before her—a never ending line of _Ben Ben Ben—_ not quite fractured but not quite _whole_ either. She brings herself level with him on the floor, reaching to touch his face and finding that there is no depiction of her to be seen in the reflection he casts behind him. 

There is no hand on his face, no confusion to be mirrored on hers—it is simply as if she isn’t there. 

Ben reaches to cover her hand with his, and the action is echoed behind him one after the other in a never-ending cycle. It’s something she knows. Something she’s never quite made sense of.

“Ahch-To,” she breathes.

Ben’s brow furrows. “What?”

“I…” She pulls her hand a way to let her eyes sweep about the darkness, letting the familiar aura of this place seep inside her. “It’s where you are. I’m sure of it.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“I agree.”

“Why would I sense you in this place?”

“Because I’ve been here before.” She finds herself again staring at the line of his reflection behind him, remembering a time where her own was cast before and behind and all around her, teasing her with answers just out of her reach. “I don’t know why it still bears my mark.” 

“Tell me what you know.”

She closes her eyes, trying to remember, reaching out to wind her fingers through his so that he might see what she sees.

“Luke saw me,” she tells him. “ _Really_ saw me. I think he knew what I was. I think he knew what I could be—” She takes a deep breath. “—and I think it terrified him.”

“Because he didn’t understand you,” Ben says bitterly. “Luke always feared what he didn’t understand.”

“He feared this place,” Rey whispers. “He sent me searching. Searching inside myself. Searching inside the current of the _Force—_ and that path led me here. To this place. An evil place.” Her voice drops considerably. “I suppose it’s obvious why I was drawn to it.”

Her eyes flutter open to meet Ben’s determined expression. “I don’t sense evil here.” He looks around him, jaw set as he seems to attempt to puzzle it out. “I sense power, yes. But it is not one thing—it is all of them.”

“I don’t understand.”

“The Force is all things, Rey,” he tells her. “It is life, death, joy, sorrow, chaos, and peace—it is everything.” He nods resolutely. “I sense all of that here.” 

“Luke feared it,” she repeats quietly. 

Ben nods resolutely as if pieces are falling together in his mind. “I think most likely because the last time he entered a place like this… he found his father.”

“But his father was—”

“He found Darth Vader, yes,” Ben clarifies. “On Dagobah. His mind’s projection of him, at least. It was the first time he knew with certainty that he would have to face him, someday. This place, or rather one like it, showed him his worst fear, and I think after that… the two would always correlate in his mind.”

“How do you know this?”

“He told me.” Ben’s brow wrinkles in thought. “While he trained me. Before he—”

Ben falls silent, and Rey doesn’t push him, sensing the grief there. She knows the vein of Luke’s betrayal, even born of fear—will always haunt Ben. “I’m sorry.”

He turns to look at her then, studying her face as he sifts through her memories that she dredges to the surface. “You went down into the cavern. That day you first touched me. You went looking for something.”

She nods back at him, the emptiness of that day trickling through her as she recalls what this place had shown her. “I went looking for answers.”

“And what did you find?”

“Nothing,” she whispers brokenly. “Nothing but shadows and more questions.” She looks up at him wearily. “Why would you sense me here?”

He glances down at the floor, thinking. “It’s a nexus.”

“What?”

“A Force nexus. Places of great power in the Force.” He nods to himself. “The first Jedi temple resided on Ahch-To, didn’t it?”

“Luke found it here.”

“They built it over the nexus. I’m sure of it.”

“Ben,” she sighs. “I don’t know what any of this means.”

“This place recognized you for what you are, and by delving into it—you left an imprint of yourself. I think—” He frowns, still thinking. “I think because of our bond, because of what we are to each other—I think I was drawn to this place. This place where you left a piece of your spirit behind. Something I could hold onto. Some place within the Force that I could go on, bound by your spirit that is also mine.”

“And now it holds you prisoner,” she whispers. 

“Or maybe it is simply the will of the Force.” He looks up at her with those same sad eyes that haunt her. “Maybe it was always known that you would need to sever this bond without bringing harm to yourself. Maybe this is the place where you can do that.”

“No,” she sputters, and then a little more forcefully: “ _No_.” She rises to her feet, feeling too-warm with anger. Anger at their fate. Anger at this place _._ “I refuse to believe that. If this place holds the power you say it does—I can use it to bring you _back.”_

Ben shakes his head. “The effort would kill you.”

“I don’t think so.”

“I _know_ it would, Rey,” Ben answers irritably. There’s a hardness to his gaze now, one that she thinks isn’t meant for her, but for the cruelty of their fate. “I know because it killed _me.”_

“And what was it for, Ben? So that I could walk through life as alone as I ever was? What was the _point?”_

Ben pushes to his feet, hands wrapping around her arms as he lowers to meet her eyes. “The point was you _living._ The point was me _doing_ something. Something in my life that wasn’t for anyone else. Something that made me feel like I was _good._ For _once.”_

She feels something inside her splinter with the pain that drips from his words. She knows his mind now, can swim through the memories of bad choices and decisions born from hopelessness—and she knows he believes that. Knows that he feels his death set about some rightness in the world. That he _deserved_ it. 

Her hands each up to cup his face. “I know what you think you deserve, Ben.” She closes her eyes as his forehead rests against hers. “But I know what _I_ deserve.” She tilts up her face until her lips hover over his, brushing against them softness of them. In this dream state there is no otherworldly chill. As they are now it is nothing but the warmth of his mouth resting against hers. “I _don’t_ deserve to lose you.” She presses her lips against his fiercely, imprinting the shape of them against her own as she breathes him in. When she pulls back a fraction, their breath intermingling between them, Rey opens her eyes to the warmth of his gaze that mirrors everything she feels for him. “I don’t deserve to lose anyone else. Ever again.”

“I don’t know if you have a choice,” he whispers.

She grits her teeth, new fierceness in her voice that comes from the pulsing resolve inside her. “Yes, I do. I have a choice.” She holds his gaze. “And I’m coming to prove it to you.”

“Rey—”

She pulls him in for another bruising kiss, and Ben’s grip is tight now, his body seeming warm and thrumming and _alive_ in this place _—_ and she feels the hope there. The hope that it will all come to fruition. 

“I’m coming,” she rasps hoarsely after, holding him against her. “And there isn’t a damned thing you can do about it.”

“You’re stubborn, for a Jedi.”

“Maybe I should have called myself Solo, after all,” she laughs softly. 

She feels his hand at her hair, his lips at her temple, and she can hear all the words he doesn’t say. Can feel them brushing lovingly along her mind like a whisper, like a lament. 

_I wish you could have._

She feels the dark closing in around her, feels their time slipping through her fingers as the waking world calls her back—and Rey holds him until it all fades, promise him, promising _herself,_ that she will. 

* * *

BB-8 is vehemently against her plan. 

“Listen, you’re going to be fine,” she tells him, stuffing what little belongings she brought with her into a pack. “I’ll set off your distress beacon when I leave. It will go straight to Poe. It isn’t like he’ll leave you here for long.”

BB chitters off a series of distressed beeps, and Rey sighs as she stops what she’s doing, turning to regard him. “There’s no place for you where I’m going,” she tells him quietly. “And I don’t know when”—there’s a looming _if_ in her mind, but she deliberately chooses to keep BB, and in turn everyone who will come after him, in the dark—“I’ll be back.”

He whirrs unhappily. 

“I know,” she sighs. “I know they’ll be worried. I’ll send word when I can.” _If I can._ “I just have things I have to take care of.”

He gives a low hum, and then lets out a string of chimes. 

“Yes,” she answers. “You’ll be safe. I’ll jam the security mechanism when I leave. Nothing Poe can’t handle, but it will keep the Jawas out, at least.”

BB seems unconvinced, but blessedly resolves to make a roundabout outside to check the circuitry for the aging security system himself (just to be sure) and grumbling something about being scrapped for parts by Tusken Raiders.

She reminds herself that he _will_ be fine. 

Poe won’t leave him here very long. 

She goes back to her work, closing her pack when it’s full and looking about the room for anything she might have missed. Her saber-staff rests in the corner, and she frowns at it for a moment, realizing that she buried the sabers that belonged Ben’s uncle _and_ mother without ever considering that he might want them one day. 

Without ever thinking he might have the _chance_ to.

“I don’t.”

She doesn’t startle at his voice, her open thoughts of him an easy doorway for him to walk through as the bond between them strengthens with every passing day. 

She turns to find him leaning against the wall over her shoulder. “You might. When you’re back.”

He doesn’t tell her that he doesn’t believe he _will_ be back—but she can see it all over his face. “Let them rest. It’s a legacy that should be buried.” 

Rey nods. “It’s why I couldn’t bring myself to keep them.”

His eyes drift across the room to her own weapon curiously. “The kyber?”

She rubs at her arm idly. “The ruins at Coruscant.”

“The High Temple?”

She nods. “Luke‘s journals spoke of the Temple Guard that once protected it. I went searching before I came here.”

“An interesting place to look for kyber crystals,” Ben muses.

Rey scoffs. “I had little else to go on, considering that _someone_ destroyed Ilum.”

“If I recall,” he points out, “it was the rebels who destroyed Starkiller, and in turn Ilum.”

“If Starkiller hadn’t been there to begin with—”

“Starkiller was never something I wanted,” Ben sighs, shaking off unhappier memories. “Regardless, it’s neither here nor there now, I suppose.” Ben strolls across the room to pick up the staff, testing the weight as he inspects. “This was not a weapon of the Temple Guard.”

“No.” She shakes her head. “The weapons I was able to unearth in the rubble were beyond repair. However, there were three that had useable kyber. I was able to construct something workable with my staff.”

Ben stares down at the blade with a parted mouth. “So then…” He flicks at the igniter, staring up at the humming beam with an awestruck expression. “Gold,” he murmurs.

“It’s a little flashy for my tastes,” she offers. “But until I can locate more…”

“I think it suits you,” he tells her. “It’s always how I envisioned you.”

“Gold?”

“Perfect,” he murmurs. 

Rey feels her cheeks heat. “Hardly.”

Ben lets the blade rest, the beam disappearing back into itself as he sets it back where it rested against the wall. He closes the distance between them with easy strides, coming to sit next to her on her bed as he stares ahead. 

“You were always so bright,” he tells her. “So untouchable.” He takes a deep breath. “I envied you.”

“We were never that different,” Rey counters. “It was only that I didn’t know who I was. It was easy to play the part of hero when my past was so murky.”

“You are a hero.”

“If that’s true, then so are you.”

Ben says nothing, and neither does she, and there is a stretch of quiet between them as neither can find the words they need to say. 

But it is Ben who breaks the silence first. “I can’t willingly go along with this plan of yours, Rey. I won’t enter into something that could end with you dead.”

“I’m not asking you to go along with it,” she huffs. “I’ll do it myself.”

Ben smiles wistfully, turning his head to let his eyes brush over the lines of her face. “So stubborn.”

“I won’t apologize.”

“You wouldn’t be the girl I fell in love with if you did.”

They stare at each other for a handful of moments, and Rey lets her hand settle over his on the little bed, stroking her thumb back and forth. “I _will_ bring you back, Ben.” She nods, if only to assure herself. “I will bring you back to this life, or I’ll join you in the next.”

“Then it would all be wasted.”

“Then we would be _together.”_

“You are needed.”

“So are _you.”_

His chest rises and falls with a sigh, and his hand curls around her nape as he pulls her into his chest, his lips lingering at her hair. “This is never what I wanted for you.” He turns his head back and forth to nuzzle her there. “I saw it there. That first time. I just never _wanted_ it.”

She keeps her eyes closed, enjoying this quiet moment. “You saw it?”

“So lonely,” he whispers. “So afraid to leave.” Her breath catches as she remembers these same words crooned long ago, meaning something so different then. Now she’s only afraid to leave _him._ “At night,” he goes on quietly. “So desperate to sleep.” He pulls away then, peering down at her with a haunted expression. “You imagine an ocean.” _She does. She thinks of nothing but Ahch-to. Nothing but getting back to him._ “I see it,” he breathes. “I see the island.”

“Did you—?”

He shakes his head. “I couldn’t have known then, but I saw you as you are now. So afraid.” _To lose you,_ she thinks. “So lonely.” _Without you,_ she mourns. “I never wanted any of it. Not for you. Never for you.”

“It won’t be my fate,” she tells him. “It won’t be yours either.”

He closes his hands around hers, bringing them to his mouth as he presses a kiss across her knuckles. “I love you,” he murmurs. He makes some small sound like a laugh he doesn’t quite feel. “Stubborn Jedi.” His eyes turn up to meet hers. “In this life or the next.”

“This one,” she whispers. “It will be this one.”

She feels him fading then, and she thinks this time it is _him_ that is letting go. She doesn’t fight him knowing that she will see him soon. Believing that she will _really_ see him soon. That across the stars she will find him. That she will bring him _back._

And when her room is empty, when there is nothing but her things and the sand and all the memories of this place that could never really be hers, for the first time in a long time… Rey doesn’t feel so alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> up up and away rey rey


	4. down 'til you fall

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HELLO AGAIN I AM SORRY IF THE CANON STUFF SEEMS WEIRD I AM TRYING SO HARD 
> 
> Also, I had an entire 1000 word scene with force ghost Luke I cut out of this because ultimately Rey has had enough Skywalkers in her life I think. She’s going Solo now. 🥁

_The air is cold._

_It clings to her skin, seeping into her pores to burrow deeper—thickening her blood with an otherworldly chill. Her movements seem slower, delayed, every step seeming to fall seconds later than meant to. Water clings to the hair at her temples, but she can’t remember diving under._

_She looks behind her, and there in her wake are an infinite number of her—laid out neatly in a line and stretching beyond the boundaries of her sight. She raises a hand, and the endless Reys repeat the motion in a rippled wave. She snaps her fingers, and the soft_ click _echoes again and again until it reaches so far it can barely be heard._

_Her breath catches as memory surfaces, and she whirls to face the looming expanse of the clouded mirror that yawns before her._

_She can see it there. A shadow that taunts her. Just the shape of it. Teasing answers. Promising_ clarity _—but it’s just out of reach._

 _She lifts her hand, watching the shadow do the same, and she’s reaching, stretching out—fingers hovering only inches away from the distorted surface. The shadow grows, not her own but larger, and it reaches back, it stretches_ towards _her, and she can’t say why, can’t say_ how _—but this person, this_ shape— _she needs to see them. Needs to_ touch _them._

 _But the shadow bleeds red now, angry,_ wounded _—crumbling away before her eyes, and there’s a pain in her chest, and she pounds at the glass, begging for it to shatter, begging for it to_ release _whatever it holds captive, and she feels the glass fracture beneath her fists, and she’s so_ close _—she just has to—_

Rey wakes with a start, sweat at her brow as she pants roughly to catch her breath.

It takes her a moment to remember where she is—to remind herself that she isn’t in that place. Not anymore. Not _yet_. 

The cockpit of the _Falcon_ is aglow with the soft blue of hyperspace, and a quick look at the monitors show that she will arrive soon at Ahch-To. That soon she will be with him again. 

She can’t feel him here in the cold depths of space, and it’s unnerving—not having that assurance of his presence to calm her, to _soothe_ her. 

She tells herself soon none of it will matter.

She tells herself soon he will be with her again.

She tries not to dwell on the dream—on the crumbling shadow that whispers failure, alludes to _tragedy—_ because Rey can’t bring herself to believe that this life would afford her anymore tragedy. She believes for all she’s done, that the Force owes her this kindness. That the Force owes her _Ben._

It’s all that keeps her going now.

The monitor chimes a warning, and Rey reaches to input the order that will bring her out of the jump. She pulls down the lever with a steady hand, releasing a pent-up breath as the blue of hyperspace gives way to the maw of never-ending stars enveloping a familiar green planet. 

Rey’s chest rises and falls steadily as she takes in the planet so teeming with life—a lush green brushing along a calm blue that at one time left her with wonder. 

She thinks to herself it would be a nice place to end up, this green planet. This place that is so full of _life._

She reaches out, eyes fluttering as the _Falcon_ begins to descend into the atmosphere, and she can feel it there—that steady hum of Ben’s Force signature. She lets it envelop her like a warm embrace, whispering through the bond that she’s coming, that she’s coming for _him._ She can’t say if she hears his answer, if the words actually reach her, but she _feels_ them. There in the back of her mind. 

_I’m not going anywhere._

She grits her teeth as she drops into the clear blue of the Ahch-To sky—thinking to herself that he’s wrong about that. 

He’s coming with her.

* * *

It had been dark the last time she found herself here. 

The moss-laden mouth of the cavern is bathed in sunlight now, but in its depths the darkness still stretches on—allowing no light in. She knows below the lagoon waits, its waters holding the secrets of a time long past, a testament to a time long forgotten. 

She’s prepared this time—not tumbling blindly but _leaping_ —gliding through the air only to halt her descent just as the toes of her boots rest against the water’s surface. She runs across the pool easily now, thinking how very different things are now than they were then. 

This time she isn’t looking for her past, no, she runs towards her _future_ now.

Her feet settle on solid ground, and for a moment she lingers just outside what the mirror offers, eyes raking over the wide expanse and met with only clouded gray—like a mournful curtain between worlds, taunting her. 

Her hand lifts only to linger in the air, fingers clenching into a fist before she draws it back down to her side. 

She’s afraid, she realizes. Afraid of what she’ll find here. Afraid of what she _won’t._

Afraid that she won’t be able to bring him back.

_Confronting fear is the destiny of a Jedi._

The graveled voice of her old master is like a whisper in her ear, and she turns her head only to find herself alone.

A memory? 

It comforts her all the same, and she takes a deep breath as she turns to face the mirror, knowing now it is more than only a soothsayer of half-truths. Knowing that it is a doorway—some portal to a place where things don’t move forward, don’t go _back—_ a place where things simply _are._

She takes a step, and then another, heart pounding wildly beneath her ribs, hand lifting from her side to stretch outwards as she tugs on that thread inside. As she calls him _to_ her. 

And his shadow mirrors every step, taking each one as if it is his own, and she knows now that it was him, always him that this place wanted to show her. 

_The belonging you seek is not behind you, it is ahead._

She feels it now. She knows that all her choices, her hardships, her entire _story_ —all of it has led to this. To _him._

Her fate.

Her fingertips collide with the cool surface, and Ben’s are mirrored there, his inky shroud dissipating until she can see the dark of his eyes, the softness of his mouth, the set of his jaw. The world seems to fall away, and there is nothing now. Nothing but them and this veil of power that thrums between them, keeping them apart. 

“You came,” he whispers.

“I told you I would.”

His lips turn up at the corners, and he seems so much _realer_ here—even through the barrier. He seems so much _brighter._

“Stubborn Jedi,” he laughs softly. 

She glances down at where her fingertips rest against his, separated only by the wall of ice-like something that keeps them apart. Her vision clouds with the memory of her dream, her breath catching in her throat as she imagines his reflection bleeding red, imagines him crumbling away—and she shakes away the recollection as she breathes in deep.

She grits her teeth. “There has to be some way to break the hold this place has on you.”

“There is,” he answers quietly. “Break the bond. The hold is _you,_ Rey. _You_ are what tethers me to this life.” She looks up to see him smiling, but there’s a sadness to it. Something like regret. “You have been for a long time.”

“I can’t accept that,” she whispers. “It doesn’t _feel_ right. It doesn’t feel like the end of our story.”

“Sometimes stories aren’t meant to have a happy ending,” Ben tells her. “Sometimes they’re only supposed to be told.”

“That’s the grimmest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“Sometimes life is grim.”

“Don’t you want to be with me? Don’t you _want_ to come back to me?”

His eyes turn down, and even with the mottled surface of the mirror that mars his visage slightly, she can see the frustration, the _anger._ Emotions not meant for her, she thinks. 

“You don’t think I want to? There has been… _nothing_ good in my life, Rey.” His hands fall to his sides, and she can see the way they clench into fists. “Nothing. The only memories I have that aren’t tainted with blood and betrayal and _darkness_ are ones I suspect I was too small to remember. There has never been _anything_ that could ever bring me happiness.” He gives her a level stare. “Nothing except you.”

Her voice is thick with emotion now. “Ben—”

“I want a lot of things,” he goes on bitterly. “I want to hold you in a way that isn’t clouded by sorrow, or death, or despair. I want to learn to be better with you, to be given the chance to right some of my wrongs—I want to _live_ with you, Rey.” His jaw is tight, his eyes drifting closed as he leans his forehead against his side of the mirror. “I want it all. I want _you_ , but—” He expels a heavy sigh. “I don’t know of a way to have those things. None that would mean you are safe and whole. I can’t watch you die. Never again. I just _can’t_. Don’t ask me to.”

For a moment she doesn’t know what to think, mouth parted and chest aching, because she wants them too. She wants _everything_ with him. Why must it be so hard?

She presses her fingers to the mirror, hovering over where his face is etched into it, running the tips of them down the smooth skin of his cheek as she thinks of the unfairness of it all. 

Her fingertips trace a line above his cheek, running over the remembered path of a scar she’d given him. A scar she’d taken _away._ Something simpler. A give and take. A wrong and a right. Why can’t _this_ be as simple? 

Why must _everything_ end in tragedy? 

She tries to see it from his point of view, but it’s hard, knowing she feels his devastation just as much. She didn’t give her life for him—but then again she was never given the _chance_. She had seconds. Mere _seconds_ of overwhelming relief and love before it was ripped away cruelly. 

Theirs is a bond that was meant to live on, she thinks. Theirs was a life meant to be _shared._ They should have had more _time._ They—

Rey goes still, thinking. 

There are fragments of memory in her mind, ones that flip through her consciousness in a rapid stream as they fall together like pieces of a puzzle.

_Time._

She thinks back to when she first came across the passages in Luke’s journal. His written word that had described using one’s own life energy to heal another. He’d called it _sharing one’s time._ Ben had given her his life, every last breath of his time—

But could he have simply shared it?

Could their bond, their energy, their _life—_ could it all be shared?

“Ben.” His eyes ease open, and she brings her hand to the mirror, watching as he places his there too. “I know how to save you.”

His brow furrows as he looks back at her. “How?”

She’s still trying to piece her errant thoughts together, but there’s a flood of _hope_ coursing through her now, because she _knows_ it will work. She can’t say how, but she just _knows_ it will. “Your body went with you, when you faded,” she tells him distractedly, thinking. “It’s corporeal. It is _one_ with the Force.” She meets his gaze, eyes wide with elation because it will work, it _will._ “If I can heal your spirit, and I can heal your body—I can do both. Simultaneously.”

Ben’s mouth parts in surprise, his features turning wary. “You can’t be talking about—”

“Transference, yes.”

“No,” he retorts vehemently, pulling his hand from the glass. “ _No.”_

“Why not? It’s the only way.”

“Then there is no way.”

Rey makes a frustrated sound. “I can _do_ this.”

“What you’re talking about—” He studies her face, sifting through her thoughts to try and make sense of them. “What you’re _thinking—”_ His jaw tenses. “You could _die.”_

“Or we could _live.”_

“I have no years left of my own, Rey,” he answers vehemently. “Every one that I take will be one of yours.”

“Half my life,” she says quietly. “It’s more than we were ever offered before.”

“I _won’t_ take half your life.”

Rey’s voice is a near-shout now, and she slams her hands against the surface of the mirror, pouring every ounce of her frustration into the action. “You already took _all_ of it when you _left_ me.”

His features soften, his next words dying on his tongue as he takes in her sorrow that seeps out of every facet of her being. As he surely feels the utter _emptiness_ she feels at the prospect of going on alone. 

“I’ve always been alone by the will of others,” she whispers. “Be it men or Jedi or Sith—I’ve never had a _choice_. I’ve never been able to _choose_ my own fate.” Her fingertips reach to rest against the place where his mouth might be if she could touch him, allowing herself to mourn it all. “I’m choosing now.” She looks up at him, sliding her hand until it settles over where his rests, aligning their fingers and imagining she’s actually touching him. “This life or the next, Ben.” Her voice trembles with emotion now. “I’m choosing _you.”_

His voice is soft and pained when he speaks. “You’re asking me to risk losing you again.”

“I’m asking you to _trust_ me.”

“And if you fail? If you expend all your energy and fade from this life?”

“Then either way—” She offers him the ghost of a smile. “Either way, we’ll be together.”

“You can’t know that,” he whispers. “You can’t know that in death we would find each other.”

“ _You_ did,” she reminds him. “I have no doubts that I would find my way back to you. No doubts that I wouldn’t be able to move on without you.”

“And what then? Spend an eternity in this place? This place where nothing ever lives or dies?”

“This place together is preferable to anyplace else apart.”

He stares back at her, breathing heavily, and she knows he wants to argue. Knows that with his last _breath_ he would fight against this if only to keep her safe. If only to avoid risking her life again. “Rey…”

“You asked me to take your hand once.” She lets her forehead rest against the cool surface, closing her eyes. She can’t see him, but she can _feel_ him mirroring the action, and she can almost imagine that they’re _actually_ touching. “Now I’m asking you to take mine.”

She hears the heavy draw of his breath, hears him release it in a slow expulsion of air. “I’m afraid, Rey.”

“Confronting fear”— the words give her more comfort now than they ever did, and she lets them fill her up, granting her peace—”is the destiny of a Jedi.”

“If you die for me...” Ben sighs resignedly. “I’ll never forgive you.”

Rey laughs under her breath despite it all. “I know _exactly_ how you feel.”

“I love you,” he tells her quietly. 

She marvels at how easily he says the words. Wonders just how long they’ve been inside him, and she smiles even through the heaviness of the moment. “In this life or the next,” she breathes. 

She pushes away from the mirror, placing both hands on the glass as Ben watches with hard eyes. She imagines that thread inside her, that pulsing beam of light that travels through space and time and _life_ itself to find him—connecting them, _binding_ them together. She imagines it as a current, as a doorway, as a _path—_ following it to Ben until in her mind there is no barrier. There is nothing between them in her vision but their breath and their skin and the steady pounding of Ben’s beating heart, happy and whole and _alive._

Rey imagines her life force as something flowing, something she can _give—_ sending it through their bond in a passing energy as the air around her begins to hum with power. Power of this place. Power of _them._

It is a thumping rhythm of life that swirls around her, and in its current she feels the way her energy leaves her. The way it flows through the bond to course into Ben—years passing between them in a steady flow. The surface of the mirror feels less rigid now, giving way to a growing malleability until she can press her fingertips against it to leave little grooves in their wake.

“Rey,” Ben calls. “ _Rey.”_

But she isn’t listening now. She grits her teeth harder, focusing only on that beam of light inside them, on that passing of energy that makes him feel more solid by the second. She keeps a tight rein on her time, finding the balance, finding the way to share her life _equally._

_Be with me._

She shouts it from the deepest parts of herself, beseeching, not spirits of old but _him._ Only him. 

She can feel her hand passing through the barrier, feel its icy chill biting at her skin and delving down deeper inside, and for a moment the icy cold of her dream threatens to break her spirit, threatens to _consume_ her—but still she presses through, still she pushes _forward—_ her only thought, her singular reason for _being_ in that moment that of bringing him back to her. 

_Be with me._

It echoes in her own ears, the humming energy morphing into a roar, even as she feels herself growing weaker, even as she hears the faint calling of her name being shouted across the bond in fear—Rey keeps going. Until she can feel the chill giving way to warm. Warm skin and rushing blood and _life._

_Be with me._

She grips it tight, pulling and _pulling_ with everything she has, everything she _is—_ and she’s so weak now. She’s _exhausted,_ but still she pulls him to her. Her vision dims, and sounds fade away, and there is nothing now, nothing but that flickering warmth in her grasp, nothing but her name falling from his tongue, nothing but _Ben_ as she can almost imagine him in her arms already—and her body feels too heavy, and her breath comes too short, and she’s so _close_ now—just a little more, and she’ll—

_Be with me._

And then everything goes white.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you follow me on Twitter, you were adequately warned about the way this chapter ended, if you don’t: fear not! I have never in my life not written an HEA, and I don’t intend to start now. ❤️ I’m just a dramatic hussy.


	5. down 'til you go

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HELLO THIS IS H E L L A SOFT LIKE I OWE SERTA ROYALTIES FOR THIS  
>   
> My sweet friend [colourisgreen](https://twitter.com/colourisgreen) made me this board!

The light is so blinding that for a moment Rey wonders if she’s dead.

It steals her vision, piercing through the darkness of the cave with a warm energy that touches her skin like a crackling fire. 

It reminds her of that moment. When the sky had been alight with a piercing electricity—flat on her back on the floor of Exegol as the world fell down around her. It doesn’t feel like it’s falling now, it feels as if it’s _rising_. She’d heard her name then, too, just as she hears it now. Creeping into her consciousness, growing louder by the second. 

But this time it’s uttered by the only one she wants to hear. 

“Rey. _Rey._ Wake up. Don’t you dare. Don’t you _dare_ do this to me. _Rey_.”

Her eyes flutter open, colors bleeding back in, met with warm eyes that are wide with worry. They open to cheeks flushed with the evidence of rushing blood beneath them. They open to a soft mouth parted in surprise. 

They open to _life._

 _Ben’s_ life.

She can’t describe her elation in that moment. He pulls her from the cavern floor, holding her against him in a cradling motion as she consumes every facet of his features. Her happiness terrifies her briefly, remembering another moment where she’d felt this same emotion.

Only to have it all ripped away.

Her hands reach weakly to let her fingertips brush against his cheek, and she swallows as she attempts to speak, her voice coming out quiet and strained.

“Ben?”

His lip quivers with his smile, widening with every second until it’s blinding. “I’m here.”

“Are you—” She lets her hand drift until it presses to his chest, feeling the warmth there, the thrumming rhythm of his heart beneath. Her mouth curls in a smile that matches his, eyes stinging. “ _Ben.”_

“I’m here,” he repeats thickly. “I’m _here.”_

She closes her eyes, resting. “We did it.”

“ _You_ did it,” he urges, pulling at her nape to let her face rest against his chest. She feels his lips at her hair, and she breathes in the warm scent of him, committing it to memory. He laughs softly, his hand smoothing down her hair. “Remind me never to doubt you again.”

“That is the important lesson here,” she chuckles in relief, happy to be afforded the opportunity to do so. 

“My stubborn Jedi,” he teases warmly, holding her close. 

“Yes,” she smiles, nuzzling closer against him. “Yours.”

There are parts of her that have questions. Questions about what he felt, what he feels, how he _is—_ but she can’t bring herself to voice them in this moment, too consumed by the overwhelming _peace_ that _she_ feels. Peace that, perhaps for the very first time, feels _lasting._ It keeps her quiet, content to enjoy this moment for as long as she can. 

“I never thought this was possible,” Ben says quietly against her hair. 

Rey turns up her face to study his. “ _This_ was always the end of our story.”

“I’m beginning to see that,” he answers quietly, his lips still bearing that wide smile that makes her chest hurt. She wants to make him smile like that until they walk into the next life, hand in hand. 

Rey leans in, slowly at first, just a barely-there brush of her lips against his, but it’s enough. Enough to send warmth and love and _life_ into her veins—and this time she feels no fear of it. This time there is nothing in his kiss but _possibility._ She feels their past and their present and their future and their _life_ branded in the searing weight of his mouth—and her hands cup his jaw as she pulls him in for more, pouring every ounce of what she feels into it. His hands slide up her spine, curving and molding her until there is no space between them, until they are one being. 

Just as they always were. 

“Take me out of here,” Rey murmurs against his lips after. 

“And where should I take you?”

“Anywhere but here,” she breathes. “Anywhere with you.”

Rey has never been one to enjoy being carried, but she lets him pull her into his arms without argument. She lets his newfound strength renew hers, reveling in the opportunity to be able to do so.

And when he carries her from the cavern out into the sun, Rey lets him without question.

* * *

For a moment he lingers just inside the deck hatch, holding her tight in his arms as he takes in the familiar layout. Rey affords him his moment, feeling through their bond what it means to him to be back here, to be back here not as Kylo Ren, but as _Ben Solo._

“I’m sorry.” His grip tightens under her arms and legs, pulling her closer. “I’m sorry, I—”

“It’s okay,” she soothes, hand smoothing over the front of his shirt. “I know.”

He draws in a shuddering breath, finally finding the strength to move further into the _Falcon_ as he carries her to the crew quarters. He lays her gently over one of the bunks, straightening to let his eyes sweep around the room. 

“It looks the same,” he muses.

She nods wearily from where she’s curled into the bunk. “It is a constant.” 

Ben takes a seat at the edge, running his palms over the fabric that stretches across his thighs in an anxious motion. “I used to dream about this ship,” he tells her. “About coming back to it. It’s—” He smiles, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “It’s one of the only happy memories I can remember.”

Rey reaches to thread her fingers through his. “You’re back now.”

“I am.” His thumb strokes across the back of her hand, and it’s so _warm_. “I’m here.”

“Han would be proud,” she tells him. He doesn’t answer, but there is something in his expression that makes her think he can almost believe that. “Stay with me,” she whispers, feeling the fatigue of all she’s done weighing her down. “Don’t go.”

Ben crawls behind her on the bunk, pulling her into his chest as his arm drapes over her middle to offer a comforting weight that is warm and heavy and _alive._ “I’m here,” he echoes. “I’ll always be here.”

“This life,” she murmurs wearily. 

Ben’s nose brushes along her nape, holding her close. “And the next.”

Rey sleeps better than she ever has.

* * *

She’s alarmed when she wakes up, but only because for a moment she is lost in the hazy sensation of feeling as if it all might be a dream.

But there is a heavy weight draped over her middle—one of arms _still_ too big and too wide to be anyone else’s—and his embrace leaves no lingering sadness this time, because there is warm breath that puffs against her neck, his soft sighs of sleep like music in her ears, reminding her that he is _actually_ here. If she focuses she can almost _feel_ the steady thump of his heart, pounding away inside his chest with life. And his body is so _warm_ against hers, telling her that Ben isn’t just a shadow of his former self. That he is _alive_.

It’s more than she ever thought she could hope for.

She rolls as gently as she’s able, turning until she can study his sleeping face for no other reason than she can. She pushes his dark hair away from his eyes, letting her fingertips linger gently against the smooth skin of his cheek that is now whole. There is some small part of her that misses the scar—thinking that it is a solid reminder of everything they have been through, all the steps they’ve taken to be here, _right here—_ but there is a peace to its absence, too. A stronger symbolism, she thinks. One that tells of redemption and healed wounds that exist deeper.

“You’re supposed to be resting.”

She smiles at his wry tone, watching his eyes creak open to peer back at her. His arm tightens around her middle to pull her closer, and she nuzzles deeper into his chest as she feels the light brush of his mouth against her hairline. 

“I feel better now,” she assures him. “Less weak.”

His hand traces idly up her spine. “Good.” 

She tilts up her face to let her lips brush along the smooth column of his throat, closing her eyes as her hands flatten against his chest between them. “You’re so warm.”

He laughs dryly. “It’s amazing what a pulse will do for you.”

She grins against his skin before she presses her lips to the gentle _thump_ of said pulse. “It’s a nice pulse.”

Ben shudders with her touch, a little huff of air escaping him, and Rey revels in each reaction, storing them away and drawing strength from them because Ben is _alive._ Her fingers slide beneath his shirt, a perfect copy of the tattered one she keeps hidden safely away in her pack—and his skin tenses beneath her hand as his fingers press into her spine needily.

“Rey.”

Her eyes are closed now, her lips resting softly just under his jaw in a leisurely exploration. These urges inside her are different now—not laced with desperation, not hurried from wondering how much time they have—simple enjoying this moment. Knowing they have so _much_ time now.

Her hand slides further beneath his shirt, fingers skimming over his side and up across his lower back—and she feels the warm press of his hand just above her leggings in some sort of attempt to still her.

“Rey,” he repeats more roughly. “You need to rest.”

She kisses a slow path along his jaw. “I am very rested.”

“Rey, we just—”

Rey slides her leg over his hip, urging him to his back as she straddles him. She lets her hands slide up his torso, resting against his shoulders as she cocks an eyebrow. “Do you know how many nights I went to sleep alone? Thinking I’d lost you?”

Ben’s gaze softens, his hands sliding over the outside of her thighs gently. “I know.”

“I still keep thinking”—her lip trembles as her voice grows thick with emotion—“that I’ll wake up any moment. That I’ll wake up and this will have all been a dream.”

Ben’s hand reaches to cup her jaw, fingers curling around the nape of her neck to pull her in close. His lips move over hers, and they are warm and wet and _so real._ “I’m here,” he murmurs. “I’m not going anywhere.” He leaves another soft kiss at her mouth. “Never again.”

Her hands move to let her fingers tangle in his hair, and she means for her answering kiss to be just as soft, means for it to be something of her love and her relief and her joy all at once—but his hands are heavy as they move down her body to grab for her hips. His mouth becomes urgent, parting to slide his tongue against hers in a way that steals her breath. There’s an unpracticed fervency to it, his fingers kneading at her hips as he gets lost in it, as they _both_ do—and there is a desperation now of a new kind. Not one that whispers of borrowed time, but one that sings of an _abundance_ of it that wars with a blinding _need_ for each other. 

She rolls her hips by instinct, breath catching when she feels the hardened length of him between her legs. She repeats the motion curiously, enjoying the way she can take her time with it now, the way she can _explore._ She runs her hands down his torso, tucking under his tunic to slide over his abdomen, feeling the way he tenses with it. Her fingertips assess every hard line, every taut inch, gliding higher beneath the fabric to smooth over his chest that now heaves with effort.

He is just so _warm._

He doesn’t fight her, when she urges the shirt over his head, and he lies dutifully still as she touches and teases every inch of his skin curiously. She lets one fingertrip trail down the center of his abdomen, lingering just above the hem of his pants as she offers a small smile. 

“This seems… unbalanced,” Ben remarks.

“Does it?” Her smile hitches up a fraction, palm flattening over his navel as her thumb strokes back and forth. “The Force does demand a balance….”

She reaches for her shirt then, pulling it up and over her head only to toss it aside. Ben watches with hooded eyes as she tugs at the bindings over her breasts, carefully unraveling the cloth, never tearing her eyes away from his. His gaze is reverent, _adoring,_ even—and it’s the same as he’s always looked at her, she thinks. 

It’s only that she’d been too stubborn to notice.

One large hand settles over her belly, sliding upwards to let his fingertips brush along her skin, settling between her breasts to hover just over where her heartbeat pounds beneath. She can see the heavy bob of his throat as he swallows, sees the way his lips press together in thought as his eyes rake over every part of her.

“Now I wonder if it’s _me_ that’s dreaming.”

She smiles softly, leaning over him to capture his mouth. He sighs as his lips move against hers, hands tentatively snaking between them to slide over her skin. A testing tug at her nipple makes her breath catch in surprise, and for a moment he stills as if worried he’s hurt her, but the impatient shake of her head and the insistent weight of her hand against his urges him onward. It’s a strange sensation, one that she isn’t really used to, but not at all an unpleasant one. It makes her skin heat in new and wonderful ways, building a strange pressure between her legs that makes her tilt her hips against the growing thickness of him. 

He hisses out a breath, hands wrapping around her waist as he pulls her against him to repeat the sensation. She feels his fingers curling under the band of her leggings, tugging insistently as she licks curiously at his lower lip, testing the softness there and drawing a groan from him. His hands fumble in their task of freeing her of her leggings, and Rey reaches blindly to shove them down her thighs as she lifts up to rid herself of them. Ben takes over as she reaches to do the same for him, a frantic rush of discarded clothing as warm skin meets warm skin. 

Rey smiles at every touch, every hitched breath, huffing out a little laugh when his lips move over her throat, when his arms curl around her—full of some unspeakable _joy_ at just _being_ here.

“I love you,” he breathes into her skin, hands roaming and heart pounding. “ _Stars,_ I love you.”

She assures him that she feels the same—kisses it into his skin as the wet slide of her against his hard length drives her to distraction, and Ben gasps below her when the motion of her hips grows more sure. She chases after the pleasant sensation of the way he moves through her and against her, and it isn’t until he grabs her waist roughly, forcing her to still, that she realizes just how much he’s straining. 

His teeth are ground together, his eyes so dark they appear black as he swallows thickly. “If you—if you keep doing that I’ll—”

She grasps what he’s trying to tell her, and it isn’t what she wants. The last time they’d been here—she’d had to lend him her warmth. 

Now she wants to steal every bit of his. 

She’s kissing him still, when she reaches between them, when she fumbles to try and take him inside—but after a few breathless moments she can _just_ feel him catch at her entrance, neither of them breathing as she lowers to let him slip inside. She has to close her eyes at the overwhelming stretch, able to really _bask_ in the way he fills her. In the way he touches parts of her that no one else ever has.

And Ben… She can feel his elation like it’s her own. Feel it pulsing across the bond in a loving heat that warms her from the inside out. He watches the way she sinks down onto him, turning down his face even as her lips continue to move across his cheek, down over his jaw—through it all Ben just _watches._

When she’s full of him, when there is no room left inside and nothing else to give her—Rey closes her eyes, taking a moment to memorize the sensation. Her thighs burn with the way they are stretched over his, her hands shaking a little as she tries to focus on keeping upright, feeling the way he twitches inside, the way the warmth of him pulses inside and through her—blooming outwards to swirl around them, kissing her skin.

The room is alive with the thrumming of their bond, and she can feel the rightness of it, feel the way having him like this—warm, whole, _alive—_ satisfies some greater power. 

Rey doesn’t care about any of it.

Rey only cares about Ben.

And she’s moving now—only a little, he’s so _big_ after all—but Ben reacts as if it's something heavy and tortuous. His grip grows tighter, his sounds grow _needier,_ and Rey tucks away each one like a prize, something she’s _won,_ because she has, she thinks. Won him. Won him by the strength of her own will. Won him by the strength of what they are, what they could _be_ , together.

She feels the moment when he loses his patience—it’s a little unexepected, and then again altogether _not_ with the way she lifts from him only to impale herself once more—and Ben rolls them with a force that reminds her just how powerful he is. Just how much of her _equal_ he is. She finds herself beneath him, not minding in the slightest, his lips finding the base of her throat to kiss messily at her skin as one large hand slides over her thighs to ease them further apart. 

She thinks maybe he has a better instinct at this, is _grateful_ for it even—because when he starts to move inside her, Rey can hardly contain the toe-curling pleasure of it. Can hardly suppress the all-over sensation of being _loved_ by him. 

His hands are in her hair, tugging and turning her head about to bare more of her skin to his mouth, all the while stroking into her with an urgent roughness that steals her breath. She can feel his every emotion—the joy of being able to touch her, _finally_ touch her like this with his own hands. Not some shadow of what he once was. 

She feels the way he manipulates the Force for his own purposes when a tingling pressure caresses between her legs, her mouth parting in a wordless cry and her eyes fluttering as the thick slide of him takes her again and again and _again._

There’s a familiar pressure building inside, but this time she doesn’t fear it. She knows beyond this moment there will be nothing but the promise of another, of _a thousand_ more—that their story is here, that it’s _now._

She knows this isn’t all there is for them.

She thinks Ben knows that now, too. 

She kisses him fiercely, allowing the thrumming pressure to course through her, allowing herself to be swept away with its current, and she can feel Ben there, too. Can feel him cresting over that wave with her until they wash ashore on the other side, sated and whole and _alive._

And she’s trembling after, and Ben isn’t much better off, but Rey finds herself unable to wipe the watery smile from her face, overwhelmed by the unfamiliar bliss that consumes every part of her. Reveling in its hold as it washes over her. 

The heavy weight of him is simply that, _heavy—_ but she revels in that, too. She can feel his smile against her throat, feel his happiness pulsing across their bond, and Rey holds him close, not wanting to let go. Satisfied with the knowledge that she doesn’t _have_ to. 

She never has to let go of him ever again. 

His breath huffs against her skin, a rough laugh escaping him. “This is… not how I imagined it would be,” he tells her. “When I imagined coming back here.”

“You didn’t imagine this?”

He lifts up, hair clinging to his temples and a wry smile at his mouth. “Well… I can’t say I didn’t imagine _this.”_ She pinches his side as he shys away, laughing. “Just maybe… not here.”

Rey doesn’t tell him that _she_ imagined it—all those nights she spent alone on this ship before she settled on Tatooine. 

But then again, she thinks she doesn’t have to. 

She notices the way he holds her close, reluctant to pull away, and she’s content to let him do so. Her hands smooth over his shoulders, tracing a pattern across his back as his breathing steadies to something peaceful. 

“It does pose a prudent question,” Ben says suddenly, quietly, shifting to let his head rest near hers. “Where will we go now?”

She hums softly, still tracing a line across his back. “Go?”

“Now that there is nothing left to save,” he clarifies. 

“There is always something to save,” she laughs. 

“It can wait,” he tells her. “For a while. For a while I would just… like to _live.”_

Rey swallows around the growing lump in her throat, smiling softly. “Living sounds… nice.”

“But where will we go to do it?”

Rey gives it a moment of thought, turning her face to let her lips rest against his, letting him lean into it. “I told you,” she breathes. “Anywhere. Anywhere with you.”

“There’s just one thing,” he huffs suddenly, pushing up to peer down at her with furrowed brow.

“What?”

He shakes his head. “I won’t be calling you _Rey Skywalker.”_

“No,” Rey laughs, beaming up at him before she reaches to pull him back to her, letting her lips brush across the corner of his mouth. “No, I have something better in mind.”

He doesn’t answer, but then again, with the way he smiles—he doesn’t have to. She knows that he knows what she’s feeling. She knows that she’s not _alone._ She knows she never will be. 

Not ever again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> GUYS.  
> I only have an epilogue left, and with what I have planned, it's going to make me cry, but I totally cried more writing this happy stuff than I did writing the sad stuff. Every happy moment just reminded me all over again just how much we were robbed. I just wanted to say again that I am so sorry that we find ourselves here, in a time we all thought we'd be celebrating, instead trying to find solace in one another. (It's late here, and I am feeling sentimental.) I love you, Reylos. ❤️


	6. so you can't crawl no more

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The ending we deserved (I hope). ❤️  
>   
> Gif board by [colourisgreen](https://twitter.com/colourisgreen) who I will never deserve. ❤️

The Caretakers still don’t like her very much. 

It’s made painfully aware to her as she watches two of them shuffle away, chittering under their breath in tones that they think she can’t hear. Rey purses her lips as they go, thinking to herself that it was a perfectly pleasant way to greet them, and therefore knowing that the only logical explanation is that they still don’t like her very much. Alcida-Auka still hasn’t forgiven her for destroying her wheelbarrow, and even though the hole she’d put in the side of one of their huts is fixed now, Rey still can’t seem to get the tiny female to be anything other than curt with her.

 _Ben_ they seem to adore—something that he assures her isn’t as big of a grievance as she takes it—but Rey doesn’t think she’ll ever stop feeling slighted when they fawn over him. Not that she can blame them. 

She uses the Force to lift the bound bundle of cut timber, letting it drift behind her as she continues on up the hill. The sea is restless today, her eyes catching the tumultuous waves that crash against the rocks below. Beyond it lies clear, blue sky—and Rey smiles softly to herself as she marvels that this will be her view for the foreseeable future. 

It had been a careful decision, coming back to Ahch-To, one that had seemed prudent given everything. She can’t say she doesn’t miss the year they spent moving around: seeing the splendor of _Varykino_ from the meadow beyond while Ben spun tales of his grandmother passed down from his own mother, drifting down the wide rivers of Felucia and learning of its history, seeing the towering structures of Coruscant with her own eyes while Ben looked on with amusement at her thinly-veiled awe. 

It had been the most magical year of her entire life, and through it all they’d had nothing but each other. 

_Balance_. 

A concept she understands a lot better now.

But circumstances change, and in the end, this green place had called to her, called to them _both—_ the nexus offering strength and grounding for lives such as theirs. Beyond that, there is purpose here. Some reason for them to press onwards, something to give the path they've walked _meaning—_ and Rey is content with it. She meant it, what she’d said to him In that cave, on a day that feels so far away now. She could be anywhere, _go anywhere,_ anywhere with him.

Although it’s fitting, she thinks, in a way. Ahch-To is the first place the Force brought them together. It seems right that it would be their last as well. 

She finds him just where she left him, just over the hill and nestled away between the cliffs as he works tirelessly, hauling materials this way and that as he finishes the framework of the structure that will be their home. Rey drops the bundle of timber nearby, taking a moment to drink him in. Taking note of just how _different_ this moment is than when she first saw him. He’d been so frightening then, in his black robes and that horrible mask—Ben as he is now exudes a very different aura. One not of fear but of _peace._ His tunic is beige like hers, his trousers a rustic brown. The saber they constructed for him with the remaining kyber she salvaged is tied to his hip, and Rey smiles to herself as she always does when she thinks of the way he grumbles each time he lights it. The way he argues that it’s not a color that suits him.

She hasn’t told him that she thinks it suits him just fine, that she thinks _he_ is perfect as well, but she thinks she doesn’t have to. She thinks he knows it just the same.

He looks so at _home_ here.

_Home._

It’s a concept she understands a lot better now, too. 

She’s learned it’s wherever he is.

“You’re making progress,” she comments, watching as he turns to greet her, wiping at his brow with the back of his sleeve.

“It’s coming,” he answers. “Slowly. Maybe by the Spring we won’t be huddling on one of the bunks in the Falcon anymore.”

“I don’t know…” She grins slyly. “I don’t actually mind the huddling.”

His answering smile is blinding, just as it’s been since the first time she saw it. “It’s one of the better parts of living on the old piece of junk.”

“Bite your tongue,” she chides. “That piece of junk will probably outlive us.”

He shakes his head. “I hate that you’re right.”

“No, you don’t.”

He smiles. “Okay, I don’t.”

“This would go a lot faster if you’d let me help,” she grumbles.

He stalks towards her, pulling her against him as he breathes in the scent of her hair. “Negative.”

“You’re being stubborn.”

“One might argue the same for you.”

She rolls her eyes. “Finn and the others will be here within the month with the first group of Force users they’ve found. Where will we house them?”

“There is always the Caretaker’s village,” he murmurs amusedly.

“They hate people.”

“I’m fairly certain it’s only you they, ah, don’t enjoy.”

Rey makes a disgruntled sound. “I’m just saying, I could still help.”

“My stubborn Jedi.” He kisses her temple. “You have more important things to worry about.”

His hand settles over her abdomen, thumb sliding across the swell there that grows rounder by the week. She smiles down at his hand that encompasses her entire belly, covering it with her own and remembering another time when it rested here. He’d given her life then, too.

“They’re restless today,” she tells him quietly.

He chuckles softly. “Already so much like their mother.”

She can feel them inside—the warmth of them, that light between them that radiates with something that can only come from a love like theirs. It has only been a week since they discovered that they can sense them, that they will be twins like Ben’s mother and uncle. One boy and one girl. It feels right, somehow.

_Balance._

“Do you think we can really do this?” Her thumb strokes back and forth across his hand. “Restore the temple. Pass on a better way.”

“I think we can do anything,” he tells her. “I think we’ve proven that.”

“And if darkness rises again in the galaxy?’”

His lips linger at her hairline. “Then we will be there to meet it. Together.”

“Together,” she echoes, but she knows that he knows she is saying something else.

_I love you._

“In this life,” he murmurs.

She smiles. “And the next.”

Rey thinks to herself that she’s finally found it. The belonging she sought for so long.

It was always ahead, after all.  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys, strap in because I am about to get sappy again. 
> 
> When I walked out of TROS I didn't know if I was going to be able to keep doing this. I know they are only fictional characters, and I know that it's only a movie, but the grief felt _real_. I lost sleep, I didn't eat, I cried randomly for days—and it was only made worse with the knowledge that everyone around me (figuratively) was hurting as well. I grieved for us as a fandom as much as I did for Ben Solo. I can't say how much Reylo has given me. I have made friends I wouldn't trade, had experiences I will treasure, and found a a sense of fulfillment in writing about these space nerds that has brought me so much joy. 
> 
> Writing this fic was hard. (Partially because the canon is not strong with this one.) But also because every word just reminded me that we won't ever get this. I held onto this epilogue for a few more days than I would normally, just because it felt like a final goodbye in a way. 
> 
> In the end though, I know TROS is just one ending. This fandom is full of so many talented writers and artists, and  
> I know that these two will live on in that way. That they will always find happiness because we will be even more determined now to give it to them, because they deserve it, and so do we. 
> 
> I cannot tell you enough how much I appreciate every comment, every kudo, every kind word about this fic on any platform—because this story was a big source of healing for me, and seeing first hand that it was able to do that for so many of you only strengthened that. 
> 
> In short, I just really love Reylo, and I really love all of you.
> 
> Thanks for enduring this very emotional a/n.
> 
> ❤️

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!  
> Come say hi on [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/kylotrashforever)!  
> I made a [Twitter](https://mobile.twitter.com/KTF_Reylo), come follow me!
> 
> Amazing [soundtrack](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7ieYWJuX7Z5WVhx63e7qsg?si=4C78eFHFSU2C5G7l0lSMGQ) for this fic built by  
> [this sweet soul](https://twitter.com/Victoria___0) on Twitter. Cannot express how well it captures the mood of the entire story. ❤️

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Be With Me (I & II) {art}](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22626397) by [altocello](https://archiveofourown.org/users/altocello/pseuds/altocello)




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